Mark Witton

markwitton.bsky.social

16 October 2026 16:37

A portrait of Dale Russell's "dinosauroid" for #FossilFriday. The creation of this iconic #specevo concept is stranger than most of us realise, being inspired not only by science but also (probably) Russell's faith and worldview, too. This artwork is based on a maquette created by Ely Kish...

Ausarchosaur

ausarchosaur.bsky.social

09 October 2026 02:37

Woops, sorry, I deleted my previous tweet b/c I accidentally showed a skeletal of a juvenile Sinornithosaurus instead of an adult. Anyway, 5 kg predatory dinosaur and a 5 kg predatory mammal. Both from the same ecosystem.

Aaron Kufner

akufner.bsky.social

24 September 2026 14:37

TL;DR: We may have been underestimating the species diversity of North American metoposaurids. Figuring out their species is still pretty hard. Maybe it's better to put each species in its own genus so we aren't always flip-flopping generic names. Support your local museums and historical societies.

Aaron Kufner

akufner.bsky.social

24 September 2026 14:35

Underdevelopment of the LLS in Apachesaurus has been used to infer that this species may have been "more terrestrial", but read the paper to see why I think this is not the case.

Aaron Kufner

akufner.bsky.social

24 September 2026 14:34

Is a modification to this developmental sequence responsible for the presence of sulci rather than roofed canals among stereospondyls? And what other kinds of modifications to this developmental sequence may have been possible? I would argue definitively...Probably? More work needs to be done!